


Dr. Oetker Means Quality

by HRogge (The_Fenspace_Collective)



Series: Candle In The Dark: A Peculiar Saga of the Sea of Time [12]
Category: BattleTech: MechWarrior, Fenspace
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 05:42:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1593680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Fenspace_Collective/pseuds/HRogge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The Great Pirate Invasion Suite:</i> Trusting outside intelligence can be a chancy thing. So why are those battlemechs raiding a frozen-food factory again?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dr. Oetker Means Quality

>   
> _“It was a great plan. Jump into this rich, defenseless system, grab all the loot we could get and jump out again. Repeat is necessary. It was a foolproof plan to get rich... I just hope I get to **strangle** Vorax when they capture him!”_ ~Sgt. Bert Dollinger, Poudre Valley Boys

The _Spotless_ shuddered as it punched through the upper atmosphere. Inside, a group of four sweating and white faced mechwarriors sat around a small table with a map of the planet on it.

“Okay, enough cheering. These lunatics don’t want to nuke anyone in atmosphere,” Captain Geeter said, “it’s our turn now!”

He looked left and right, then he pointed at the map.

“This will be our target. A medium sized city in a region called Germany,” he added and grinned, “large enough that they will not use nuclear weapons, small enough that we should have the upper hand there.”

The three other mech pilots looked at the map.

“First, the city has a small airport where we can easily land the _Spotless_ , but I don’t see any kind of military airbase. Second, my sources say that the city is home of the _Dr. Oetker_ factory, one that is known for high quality products!

And finally I managed to find something very interesting in the data of the _Drakon_. There are rumors that the planets intelligence service has been trying to hide the city, even pretending it does not exist! This makes this Bielefeld a perfect target for a quick raid!”

“What about the _Gargoyle_? It has been trailing us since the _Nightmare Moon_ and the _Phantasm_ got wrecked.”

“Oh, they are welcome to join us.” Captain Geeter laughed. “Maybe we should renegotiate the distribution of the loot on the way home, at least if _Vorax_ wants his precious ship back!”

~***~

The sirens in the _Generalfeldmarschall-Rommel-Kaserne_ screamed, everywhere the crews checked their vehicles for the last time and waited for their marching orders. Nobody had expected a military operation in Western Europe for decades, but UN and NATO peacekeeping missions and the specter of a terror attack with waved hardware had kept the the German military alive. And now a _State of Defense_ had been declared and an enemy spaceship was heading for the near airport.

Not to Berlin, not to Cologne, Hamburg or Munich... no, they were coming to _Bielefeld!_

They would not need the special trains near the military base, which had been waved with the help of a group of Fen to quickly transport the tanks and artillery through Europe. The enemy had managed to land in an airport less than 20 kilometers away!

The Fen had done their work, then NATO Space Command had shot down two enemy Dropships... now it was time for the German Army to prove they could do their job.

~***~

“ **COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP, NO ONE WILL BE HARMED IF YOU COOPERATE!** ”

The speakers of the _Marauder_ battlemech were loud enough to shatter a few windows. Just a moment later a man in a suit came out of the building, waving an improvised white flag.

Captain Geeter smiled as he dialed down the volume, raiding was much more efficient when the local workers cooperated. Most civilians didn’t have the courage to delay a raiding force until the military could arrive.

“ _You will do as we say if you want to survive... we will take what we want and your workers will help us to get it. If you refuse, we will level the building with everyone inside!_ ”

He switched to the radio. “Get the hovertrucks here and start loading up. Begin with military equipment and electronics, and hurry! The mechs stay together, but keep an eye on the highway back to the airfield.”

On the ground, the crew of the Gargoyle hunted for loot.

~***~

A radio clicked in the Heer’s temporary HQ in Augustdorf.

“Link to forward observer confirmed, we still have a fix on the two spaceships for our artillery batteries.”

“According to observers in Bielefield, the attackers are still at the Dr. Oetker factory. No sign of any fighting.”

The commanding officer, Colonel Meier looked at the situation map and nodded.

“Good. As long as they don’t start shooting, we still have time to get more reinforcements into range. Hold your fire.”

Artillery Battalion 215 had set up slightly outside their military base on the training area nearby, while they waited for tanks and reconnaissance vehicles to get into range of the enemy spaceships. Since both had arrived near the airport, all of them were waiting for new orders.

And for reinforcements.

The radio went silent again and the operator sighed.

“What are they doing at the factory? I mean, why should a pirate invasion from another star system go there?”

Colonel Meier shrugged. “We don’t know, but they won’t stay there forever.”

~***~

“Geeter! GEETER!!”

Two men rushed back out of the depot of the factory, running toward Captain Geeter’s mech and waving two colorful cardboard box.

Geeter quickly scanned his mechs surroundings, but he couldn’t see any immediate danger.

“What?” he spat out.

“The workers here opened the depot for us. But there’s no military equipment inside, just frozen food!”

Geeter had to blink a few times, then he zoomed the optics of his mech at the box. The picture on it looked like food.

“Frozen food?” he murmured into the microphone.

“Yes, frozen food... Pizza, baguettes with cheese and ham on them, yogurt... and they got cakes, lots of cakes... and...”

“ _Shut up_ you idiot” Geeter yelled, “that is just a facade, a proxy factory that hides the important things! Jenkins, Miller, take your Mechs and see where they hid the good loot!”

~***~

The next hour was the longest in Geeter’s life.

The _Gargoyle_ ’s infantry busied themselves turning the office building upside down and while two Mechs destructively dismantled a promising looking building, The crew of the _Gargoyle’s_ own hovertrucks commandeered a few additional curtainside trucks from the loading dock and began to load them up.

‘Eleven forklifts, six trucks with integrated refrigeration, seventy five lostech computers... and more frozen pizza than the whole of Antallos would eat in a month’ he thought aloud, noting things down on his clipboard, ‘But not even a hint of something military.”

The amount of computer hardware on its own was suspicious, but coupled with old ICE-engined wheeled trucks, and battery vehicles that drained within an hour almost placed it beyond suspicious, and right into the realm of the schizophrenic. _Something_ wasn’t adding up...

His thoughts were interrupted by his mech’s comm.

“Captain Geeter, this is the _Spotless_ , whatever you are doing over there, do it quickly. We’ve spotted some military vehicles in the nearby woods. Seems the local crunchies are finally waking up.”

~***~

“Rocket artillery volley one impacting in four minutes!”

“Movement around the two ships, scout reports two people with spyglasses.”

The atmosphere of calm professionalism in the HQ dissolved in a flurry of rapid exchanges. Situation displays on the walls marked the position of all the Bundswehr vehicles around Bielefeld, along with a swarm of rapidly approaching missiles.

Colonel Meier looked at the clock again.

“It’s time. Order our tanks to engage the enemy as planned. The Eloka will activate the jammers thirty seconds later. All artillery batteries, fire for effect!”

~***~

“You found that military shoebox yet?”

Lieutenant Petros, Geeter’s second in command wasn’t happy. This meant that nobody on the ship was happy. While they had discovered a single military vehicle sitting in the woods earlier, it had moved out of sight again a few minutes ago. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but the locals up to something.

He would have given his left arm for one of the _Spotless’s_ aerospace fighters, but they hadn’t survived the space battle.

“ _Spotless_ , this is _Gargoyle._ We’re tracking a group of low flying aircraft, less than a kilometre away. Tracking is intermittent. Can you confirm?”

Petros was still turning his head to the radar display of the _Spotless_ as the world outside the ship seemed to explode.

The _Spotless_ suddenly fell forward as a series of tank shots smashed its forward landing gear. A second group of shots hit close to the bridge window, producing an ugly pattern of tiny cracks.

“We’re under attack, shoot everything that moves!” he shouted into his intercom, then switched over to long range radio, “We need help Geeter, the army is here! Geeter, do you read me?”

He instinctively ducked behind his console as the side and top of the _Gargoyle_ suddenly lit up in a series of explosions, multiple rockets and artillery rounds hitting their target nearly simultaneously.

“Geeter, are you fucking deaf as well as dumb?” He yelled into the radio again, watching as _Spotless’s_ guns killed a tank with a laser.

The only sound that came back through the radio circuit was a strange, cracking scream.

~***~

Geeter pushed his ‘mech into a high speed run, redlining the actuators as he moved his lance back to the airport as fast as he could. Loading teams were racing to get the last of the loot aboard the local trucks. None of them wanted to leave anything potentially valuable behind... one team had found a particularly large and complex piece of machinery and was manhandling it onto an old flatbed.

His mech’s loudspeakers solved the problem.

“Get moving! The bloody trucks can look after themselves. If they capture the Dropships we’re as good as dead!’

Crews abandoned half-loaded vehicles, scrambling to catch up with the accelerating hovertrucks.

“Petros, talk to me you bastard!” he bellowed into the radio again. He was answered by nothing but a crackling electronic howl.

His mech smashed through a particularly large tree that’d been blocking his view of the airport. What he saw caused him to stop dead in shock.

The hulking shape of the _Gargoyle_ was belching smoke from numerous holes. A particular large one had been torn open. The upper levels of the hull had collapsed down onto the command deck, thick black smoke haemorrhaging through open wounds.

The _Spotless_!

It....wasn’t anymore.

It was laying on the ground, the armor of the engine section had been crushed inward in at least three places. The right wing had disintegrated entirely, leaving chunks of metal strewn across the runway.

They must’ve hit the missile launchers, he realised. His eyes scanned for the invosible enemy. It didn’t take him long to spot the smouldering wrecks of ten, maybe fifteen old tanks, hidden hull-down behind a berm just beyond the remains of the airport perimiter fence.

Clever bastards.

It took a certain level of guts to take on a dropship in a _tank..._.. especially one so small.

The interference on his radio cleared and a new voice spoke:

“ _This is Colonel Meier of the Bundeswehr to the leader of the attacking pirates. You will shut down your weapons and surrender immediately, or we will destroy you._ ”

The voice was cold, hard and sounded confident of victory. Whoever it was had never met a battlemech then.

“Colonel Meier. My answer is: _nuts._ ”

Tanks. Against a static target they’d done well, but the mobility of a battlemech would make them suffer. He was certain he could stomp that cool tone out of this Meier’s voice and have him squealing surrender by morning. It was the least he could do to pay back the damage.

It was the last chance he had of getting out of this with his neck still attached to his shoulders. Stomp ‘em hard and hope they run out of people before he runs out of ammo...

~***~

“Nuts”.

Meier read the message and sighed. “Well, three out of four won’t be bad.” A grim smile crawled across his lip.

“Target Alpha. Battery’s one, two and three. Full volley. Give this arsehole some shells for his nuts.”

~***~

Geeter stared at the red light blinking in his cockpit, wondering what it meant.

“Alright lads. Form up tight. Search and destroy mode. We kill as many of them as we can.... make ‘em think we’re invincible, then maybe we can dictate terms enough that’ll get us out of here alive.

Three voices answered in the affirmative.

Yes. Fuck this world and all who live on it.

The thought was interrupted by a flurry of explosions punching across the torso and head of the Hunchback beside him. He felt the explosions reverberate through the armour as the machine flailed, it’s pilot trying to scream for help.

A moment later, he was interrupted by the brilliant flare of an ammunition explosion, boiling hot and white as it grew and rose into a burning orange mushroom cloud. An arm, weighing maybe ten tons or more, tumbled end-over-end through the air trailing embers before landing a full tenth of a kilometre away.

Chunks of red-hot metal rattled of Geeter’s own battlemech as his jaw hung wide open.

“Targets. Targets?” he bellowed, searching for the source.

The legs of the ruined mech had somehow remained standing amidst the flames.

“Nothing. I got nothing. They’re firing BVR!”

“They got to have a bead on us somehow. Nobody can fire that accurate.”

His eyes scanned the treeline. He saw only smouldering tanks, and pieces of wreckage thrown from the Hunchback.

In those few moments, he realised how truly and utterly screwed he was.

In a few moments, the next volley could drop right down on top of his head like the hammer of God.

He felt himself start to shake in his seat.

“Meier. This is Geeter. We surrender alright. We surrender!”

He slumped down, for a moment praying that this Colonel Meier was too busy ordering the next volley to pay attention. If only to save him from the embarrassment of it all.


End file.
